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Horace Elisha Scudder

A Country Fellow and a River

A Blockheaded boy who was sent to market with butter and cheese by the good old woman, his mother, made a stop at a swift river in the way, and laid himself down on the bank there, till it should run out. About midnight home he goes to his mother, with all his market trade back again. "Why, how now, my son," says she, "what have we here!" "Why, mother, yonder’s a river that has been running all this day, and I stayed till just now for the running of it out, and there ‘tis, running still." "My son," says the good woman, "thy head and mine will be laid many a fair day before this river has all run by."